


Memory Worked by Mirrors

by endofmeandeverything



Series: miseria fortes viros [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Divergent, Child Abuse, Childhood Sweethearts, Depression, Dimensional Manipulation?, Ghosts, Magical Realism, Mental Illness, Mixed Media (ish), PTSD, Prison, Time Travel, Trans Character, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 14:29:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20155117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofmeandeverything/pseuds/endofmeandeverything
Summary: As a child, Ronan believed in angels.  They existed in the arc of sunlight reflected from his mother’s colored glass windchimes, in the whisper of wind against the grasses in the far field.“Where there are angels,” his father told him seriously, “there are always demons.”And so Ronan also believed in demons: the creak of a floorboard when the whole house was abed and the shadow beneath the altar at midnight Mass.Ronan isn’t a child anymore, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still fear the darkness under his bed.





	1. Henrietta PD 2009-24246

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183305960@N08/48484310252/in/dateposted-public/)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183305960@N08/48484310197/in/dateposted-public/)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183305960@N08/48484310132/in/dateposted-public/)


	2. -

**-**

As a child, Ronan believed in angels. They existed in the arc of sunlight reflected from his mother’s colored glass windchimes, in the whisper of wind against the grasses in the far north field, in the moonlight shifting through leaves and dancing across his bedroom floor on long autumn nights.

“Where there are angels,” his father told him seriously, “there are always demons.” Too young to understand, Ronan had merely fallen in love with the rosary his father twisted around and around and around his wrist that night.

And so Ronan had also believed in demons: the creak of a floorboard when the whole house was abed, the shadow beneath the altar at midnight Mass, and the prickle of hair on the back of his neck rising when he crossed the copse of boxelder trees in the north-western corner of the Barns.

“There’s a demon under my bed,” Ronan told his father on his tenth birthday.

Niall laughed and ruffled his hair. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Ronan said with all the surety of a boy who just that day had managed to jump the wide drainage ditch in the south field without falling back into murky water.

“Best beware, then, so it doesn’t drag you under there and keep you captive! Living with demons is hard work.”

Ronan’s mother did not like it when Niall spoke like that. There were heated arguments whispered across the kitchen table once the children were put to bed. These arguments were not about whether there was, in fact, a demon under Ronan’s bed but rather about whether Niall should tell Ronan so.

It never mattered to Ronan what his mother thought; his father did not lie to him even when the truth was frightening. His answer to whether Ronan would go to Hell if he lied in confession was a straightforward one. Ronan was more frightened of Hell than of the demon under his bed, but Ronan’s mother did not tell Niall to stop talking about Hell. 


	3. Spring 2019 - Summer 2012

**Spring 2019**

** **

Ronan Lynch came to abruptly: stomach plummeting, breathless, every hair on his body standing up. For a moment he was frozen, then his first shaky inhale let reality flow back into him.

** **

Every rapid beat of his heart made his temples throb. His throat ached. Dried sweat prickled on his skin. 

** **

Swallowing hard, he struggled to free his legs from sodden sheets.

** **

Why had he startled awake so--

** **

“Noah,” he groaned, tasting bile on the back of his tongue, “you dick.”

** **

From somewhere in the nebulous shadows around the grandfather clock came the sound of a boy sniffing. “It's after seven,” complained Noah. “And you were talking in your sleep.”

** **

“Fuck off,” Ronan said. “I wasn't.”

** **

The darkness around his father's clock went funny-shaped and began to undulate across the floor. Noah couldn't help the way his spirit manifested, but watching always made Ronan sick. This morning his stomach had already crawled halfway up his throat so he buried his face in his pillow and tried not to think about how long it had been since he’d washed his bedclothes. When he tried to swallow, his throat clicked dryly and he tasted blood. An exploratory probe with his tongue elicited the vague recollection of tripping over the barn’s threshold and biting his lip. 

** **

Ronan groaned and pushed himself upright. If it was after seven, he had less than an hour to make himself presentable and get into town for Mass. He glared at the collection of empty bottles set haphazardly at his bedside as though they had had anything to do with his current hangover.

** **

“You know,” said a voice in his ear. 

** **

Ronan jolted so violently that he nearly fell off the heap of straw where he’d made his nest. (There was a bed in the house of course--luxurious and wide--but Ronan had carved a space for himself in one of the lofts of a disused barn on the corner of the family property, as if he could hide from his own thoughts the way he could hide from Declan’s irritated summons.) “Shit!”

** **

Noah coiled dark and sinuous in the wrinkles of Ronan’s sheets--hiding. “Sorry. I forgot.”

** **

The moment his heart returned to its proper position, Ronan forgave him: “Creepy fuck. You couldn’t have woken me up earlier?” 

** **

Now that he was upright and committed to actually getting out of his loft at some point, the pain in his head and the exhaustion in his bones and the miniature tidal waves rolling in his belly combined to make him regret every last moment of the past week. He kicked open the mini fridge that served as his nightstand: there was a solitary beer hiding behind the Chinese takeout that Ronan hadn’t touched after he’d chewed his way through two measly bites and abandoned it a week ago. It would have to do.

** **

Popping the cap on the scratched edge of the fridge door, Ronan rubbed a hand over his face and tried to pull his curls into something resembling order. 

** **

He wanted whiskey tonight. He wanted not to dream tonight. He wanted Noah to vanish so he didn't feel guilty about popping the cap off the lager and taking greedy mouthfuls to soothe the faint discomfort lodged in every atom of his body.

** **

“Gansey called.”

** **

Ronan choked. “What? When?” He wiped foam from his lips with the back of his hand and reopened the cut on his lip in the process.

** **

“While you were passed out.” The spider web of darkness in his sheets contracted to a pool between his pillow and the wall as Noah made this petulant announcement. 

** **

“Sleeping, “ Ronan protested.

** **

Noah shrunk again, but said firmly: “Passed out.”

** **

“I don’t know why I’m friends with you,” Ronan said without malice, which was the only thank-you Noah would get for not mentioning his hair-of-the-dog.

** **

“Are you going to call him back?”

** **

There were things about which Ronan Lynch was certain. He loved The Barns. He loved his family. Once, he had loved Richard Campbell Gansey the Third with all his heart. But that had been a long time ago, and the void inside him that Gansey had filled once upon a time was now filled with empty years and hundreds of miles and college degrees and unspoken disappointments. Ronan usually kept his thoughts far away from the memory of Dick Gansey. Standing alone in a loft in a barn where he sleeps, stinking and unaware of the last time he thought about showering, the idea of calling Gansey seemed impossible. “Dunno.” He couldn’t bring himself to say  _ no _ , but that was pure selfishness. In truth, Ronan could very well imagine Gansey answering the phone after the first ring, could imagine the fondness in his voice every time he said  _ Ronan _ . It was the entire conversation after that first greeting that Ronan didn’t want to think about. He couldn’t bear it again.

** **

Noah’s sigh moved through Ronan’s whole body in a shock of cold.  _ You should _ .

** **

“Stop that. I hate it when I can’t tell if it’s you or my own damn brain.”

** **

“Sorry.” But Noah was not sorry. “You should call him. He never calls. He must want something.”

** **

Ronan didn’t vocalize his immediate reaction:  _ what could he possibly want from me _ ? But he could hide neither that baffled thought nor the profound wave of self-pity tinged with grief and guilt and anger because of the grief and guilt. Noah felt it all anyway. Perhaps that’s why Ronan liked him so well. He never had to explain himself to Noah. Noah listened.

** **

Noah appeared again, oozing out from beneath Ronan’s bare feet. The floorboards turned suddenly cold. “He misses you.”

** **

“You don’t know that. You don’t know  _ him _ .”

** **

Insubstantial though he might be, Noah could be firm in the face of Ronan’s displeasure when even declan usually backed off. “That’s why friends call friends,” he insisted. Either the sunlight or his own insistence was rending the blackness of his form to reveal glimmering of silvery light. “When they miss one another.”

** **

Ronan finished off his beer and started gathering up the empty bottles in lieu of answering.

** **

The faint hum of air--a hum not audible to most people--that accompanied Noah’s presence vanished. Ronan had learned a long time ago that an abrupt departure didn’t mean Noah was angry. Noah had simply explained that it was hard to tell when some moments  _ were _ in time. It was possible the past moments had been centuries for Noah. It was also possible that Noah wasn’t in the mood to coax Ronan out of this particular brand of funk. He’d said before: “You smell worse than usual when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

** **

Grabbing for his phone and his abandoned t-shirt, Ronan mopped the sweat off his face and from under his arms, threw the t-shirt over his shoulder and deliberately ignored looking at his missed calls as he shoved his cell into his back pocket, tripped down the ladder, and shoved open the heavy barn doors.

** **

The sun was still working its way into the sky, but it was due to be a day more like June than early April and heat was already drawing out the earthy scent of the Barns. This was Ronan’s favorite thing: warm straw and animal flesh, murky water and blooming green trees. Fresh grass. A hint of early magnolia blossoms. It smelled like his childhood. It smelled like his mother’ hair. 

** **

He pushed through the tiny copse of willow and box elder that sheltered his barn from the main property. Beyond his messy corner, the fields and fences stretched off in neat lines up to the house. No matter how many times he woke to this view, it never failed to ease the tightness in Ronan’s chest. Somewhere to the north, cows lowed contentedly. A flurry of sparrows erupted from above and the birds spiraled off in a frenzy of chirps and fluttering wings.

** **

Amidst the neat rows of early plantings and white picket fence was Ronan’s own path: worn by his feet and his alone, meandering here and there up to the main house.

** **

The moment Ronan let himself in the back door, all the comfort sunlight and fresh air had imbued him with withered. Declan sat at the large kitchen table with a mug cradled in his hands and a frown already set firmly on his face. His tie was knotted immaculately. The moment Ronan closed the door, Declan sighed hugely and rubbed his temple with his knuckles.

** **

“Don’t start,” Ronan said, raking his hand through his hair.

** **

“You smell like beer. Before church, Ronan, really?”

** **

Loping across the room in a bid for a quick escape, Ronan repeated: “I said don’t start.”

** **

Declan, whose survival instincts were apparently taking a vacation, abandoned his coffee and followed Ronan through the house to his childhood bedroom. “Have you even left home this week? You’re not supposed to be drinking on those meds--”

** **

“Then get me different meds,” Ronan snapped. It didn’t matter anyway; he wasn’t taking the little pink pills and the little blue ones before had been fucking useless and when Declan inevitably had a delivery driver deposit an envelope with four prescription bottles inside the mailbox at the end of the driveway, Ronan would shove them into the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom and ignore them. Certain miracles could not be counted upon. Considering Declan’s faithful visits to their mother on Wednesdays,, Ronan would have thought his brother understood that.

** **

But Declan must have been in a mood for a fight, because he followed Ronan into the bathroom and refused to leave even when Ronan stripped all the way down and kicked his underwear across the room. Ronan savored the way his brother firmed up his jaw and refused to look anywhere but Ronan’s face. His discomfort was palpable and with vindictive ferocity, Ronan let him stew in it before scoffing and climbing into the shower. The spray fell freezing over his shoulders, shocking and drawing up every fine hair on his body. He rubbed hands through his hair and over his face, grinding his knuckles into his eyes, dragging his fingertips across the tense muscles of his shoulders in a useless bid to ease the tension there. He should have taken aspirin before he got in.

** **

Because Ronan had given up on miracles, he wasn’t surprised when Declan went on. “I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Ronan.”

** **

Ronan didn’t dignify this with a response, just braced his hands against the shower wall and let the water run through his hair, over his face, down his back.

** **

“What else am I supposed to do? Are you listening to me?”

** **

Ronan scrubbed under his arms and quickly between his legs, wriggled his toes and rubbed his hands over his skin just to feel his goosebumps. The alcohol-sweat was sloughing off of him, but so was the sweet summer hay.

** **

“You promised me, Ronan. You promised that if I left you alone you’d at least try.”

** **

Ronan had tried. Not particularly hard, but he  _ had _ tried. A week without a drink and every night ended in a cold sweat, with the burn of tears he hadn’t shed for years, with sleeplessness. Once upon a time, he might have called Gansey. Gansey, who had never looked at him the way Declan looked at him: pity and misunderstanding everything. But Gansey lived in D.C. now and so Ronan rinsed sourness out of his mouth and listening to his eldest brother have a conniption on the other side of the shower curtain.

** **

Pitiless, he got out naked and made Declan stare furiously at the wall behind Ronan’s ear. “You tried, I tried. F-minus, okay? What will it take to get you to just leave me alone.”

** **

“I will,” Declan said furiously. “There’s only so much I can take from you. I thought you were doing better, I thought you were thinking about classes, and here you are drinking before church-- _ church, Ronan _ \--and I’ve had it.”

** **

“Then  _ leave me the fuck alone _ .”

** **

“Yeah? And who’ll you have then? Gansey?”

** **

Ronan, shorn through with the truth laid out in front of him, froze. 

** **

Perhaps sensing he’d overstepped or perhaps in fear of his as-yet unbroken nose, Declan crossed his arms over his chest and said, “He called me, you know. Because you won’t answer your damn phone. Said he left you a message but asked if I saw you whether I’d tell you he’s coming back to Henrietta. Wondered if you were still around.”

** **

Ronan deliberately released the clench of his fist, the bones in his fingers aching with the effort.

** **

Declan raised a brow. “You gonna tell  _ him _ to fuck off again, too? Huh?”

** **

“Get the fuck out.”

** **

Declan, political through and through, knew his blow had landed and that the battle was over. “Matt and I will see you in church. Brush your teeth.”

** **

He retreated and Ronan slammed the door closed behind him.

** **

There was a moment in which all Ronan could hear was his blood pounding in his ears and the unsteady sharp intake of breath, then his phone plummeted off the counter, bounced on the bathmat, and a shadow swirled down the drain.

** **

“Oh, fuck off.” But Ronan was just tired now.

** **

He bent and scooped his phone up off the floor, stared at the screen.

** **

_ 2 missed calls _

** **

Ronan turned his phone off.

** **

_ He misses you _ .

** **

**Summer 2012**

** **

“I just thought you were doing better lately--”

** **

Ronan scoffed because Gansey was and always had been a shitty liar. Not that he ever lied to Ronan, but he was an expert as misidentifying why Ronan slurred and cancelled plans and hid away instead of coming to the graduation ceremony he should have been attending.

** **

“I’m not coming to fucking New Hampshire with you. I told you that. If you want to leave--”

** **

“I’m not asking you to go to college--”

** **

“I’m sure that Ivy-League would be happy to have a college drop-out with a record--”

** **

Gansey continued as if he hadn’t heard Ronan’s self deprecation. He did that a lot, like if he ignored it hard enough it would go away. He did that about a lot of things, mostly things about Ronan. “--I’m just saying that once I go you’ll be all alone here, and--”

** **

“Maybe that’s what I want.” In no world did Ronan mean it, but it shut Gansey up.

** **

Regret was immediate, punishment meted out by the stunned widening of Gansey’s eyes and the way his hands stopped fluttering in emphasis to fall like dead birds to his sides.

** **

But Ronan wasn’t well-acquainted with apologizing for things he said and did, because he had to save up all his apologies for simply being who he was. Every Sunday, every morning, every evening, something sucked all the  _ sorriness  _ out of him so he had nothing left for anyone else. “It isn’t always about you, Gansey,” he said in an attempt at explanation.

** **

It wasn’t that he wanted Gansey to stay, it was only that he couldn’t bear it if Gansey left. And Ronan  _ couldn’t _ leave, not now and probably not forever. He needed Gansey to understand. He needed Gansey to stay, but it seemed impossible to say so.

** **

“That was cruel,” Gansey remarked softly, all his regality wrapped around him as if that could protect him from the damage Ronan had already inflicted.

** **

The only thing Ronan could offer in comfort is the truth: “You know I can’t leave.”

** **

At this, Gansey just stared at him sadly. His throat worked in the way that meant he was swallowing down words; his mouth creased in the way that meant he was disappointed and unwilling to show it. But Gansey, in his care not to hurt Ronan, had left a vacuum of silence between them that was unbearable.

“So go if you have to,” Ronan said. He wanted it to come across magnanimous and truthful. “It doesn’t matter what I say, I know you’re going anyway. You just want to make yourself feel better by trying to drag me along with you.”

** **

“ _ Ronan _ .” It was a white flag, a plea for mercy.

** **

Ronan never had much of that, either. “So go. Go off to college and--” he waved one arm in a mockery of Gansey’s expansive gestures, his expansive  _ life _ , “-- _ travel _ and do whatever it if your parents think is appropriate. But I can’t come with you. I just can’t. And you knew it when you asked.”

** **

Gansey stared at him, solemn and pale and still undefeated. “You could. If you wanted to.”

** **

“ _ Well I don’t want to _ !”

** **

For a moment Gansey stood perfectly still, like time had frozen. Or like he was waiting for something else, some further outburst of explanation or--worse--for Ronan to start crying. Then his shoulder drooped and his chin dropped and he sighed and the whole production was so reminiscent of Declan that Ronan couldn’t bear it.

** **

“Just get the fuck out,” Ronan said.

** **

When Gansey was slow to respond, slow to turn his awful face away from where Ronan stood stricken with grief and wanting to be invisible, Ronan did the only thing he could think of and picked up a bauble from the bookshelf by the fireplace, heaving it in Gansey’s general direction.

** **

The sound of porcelain shattering punctuated his cry: “ _ Go _ !”

** **

And so Ronan was left in the expansive house with only the echo of his heaving breaths for company.

** **

**Spring 2019**

** **

Gansey hadn’t called again, but Ronan couldn’t make himself delete the insistent blinking message at the bottom of the phone screen.

** **

_ 2 missed calls _

** **

It wasn’t unusual, really, for Gansey to get a pang of conscience and call from time to time. Ronan never answered, and Gansey left him a brief and innocuous message but didn’t call again until another year or two had passed. Somehow the content of the messages always made Ronan feel worse than not returning the call at all. It was like Gansey had left him a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest of Other Peoples’ Lives, hoping against hope that Ronan could find him someday.

** **

But Noah was a more insistent presence and less likely to be put off by evasive answers and non-responsiveness.

** **

Sunday night, Noah spilled out of the drain while Ronan was taking a shower and made the water under Ronan’s feet shimmer like an oil spill. “Why don’t you want to see him?”

** **

It had been a long time since it bothered Ronan to be naked in front of other people, but he still kicked at Noah’s rippling form. “Jesus, can’t a guy get any privacy?”

** **

In revenge, Noah swept in a cool breeze up Ronan’s spine and gave him hives. “It would be good for you. To see someone.”

** **

“I see you all the time. I just saw fucking Declan. That’s enough people for about a thousand years. But thanks.”

** **

_ You’re lonely _ .

** **

Ronan growled. “Stop.”

** **

_ I can’t help it sometimes. _

** **

“You could help it two seconds ago, asshole.” Ronan rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration and shut the water off. By the time he reached down to shut off the water Noah was gone.

** **

The house was silent, but Ronan has found comfort in silence over the years. The Barns were innately quiet, set far back even from the county road and protected by a ring of trees older than the family name. Even in the high season, when cows lowed and he and his brother ran rampant and shrieking through the fields, the Barns was  _ quiet _ . Now, they were cavernous. Barren, but not empty. The acres and acres between Ronan and another human being stretched out: imprisonment in place of protection. The basement was dusty, the television hadn’t been turned on in years. The master bedroom was locked up tightly. And Ronan sat in the middle of it all, turning over and over in his mind the few shining memories of life, after Gansey and before his father’s murder. It had been his major preoccupation since Gansey had left him like everyone else.

** **

Like  _ Parrish _ .

** **

Ronan stayed far away from thoughts about Adam Parrish.

** **

Tonight, with his argument with Declan and the intolerable small-talk of lunch still fresh in his mind, Ronan found a half-empty bottle of whiskey under the sink and stood at the foot of the stairs looking into the dark upstairs hallway. If there were ghosts in this house besides Noah, they lived up there.

** **

No, scratch the  _ if _ .

** **

Taking a long swig for courage, Ronan took the first step up. It creaked ominously beneath his weight: a warning. The universe, perhaps, saying: you know what’s up here. Nightmares. Demons. Instead of swallowing down another mouthful of the whiskey, Ronan lifted his wrist to his mouth and took the rosary wound there between his teeth. Without thought: the Apostles’ Creed, but nothing further.

** **

On the second step he returned to the whiskey, which was much more reliable.

** **

At the top of the stairway, cool air whispered across the floor. Ronan wanted to ask for Noah, but Noah was familiar. Noah was not shy. It wasn’t Noah, and Noah could not be made to manifest anywhere near the stairwell that led up. It was the one thing he had explicitly refused Ronan over the years.

** **

Ronan looked into Declan’s childhood room, stripped of its childhood trinkets and it’s history. Air rushes out despite the fact that the window is locked up tight. Ronan shivered. He pictured Declan telling him the seal must be bad, that he should fix that before it got worse. But Declan had never believed in much of anything aside from himself, so Declan could never understand about things unseen. After the first brush of chill air against his cheek, there wasn’t another.

** **

Ronan laughed at himself. 

** **

Ghosts.

** **

He took another swig for himself, then poured out a libation on Declan’s threshold. “For your common fucking decency,” he murmured. The words were loud, filling up the darkness before being swallowed by a silence that seemed deeper for their vanishing. 

** **

But Ronan had come looking for something, company perhaps, and so he put his free hand against the wall for guidance and took one slow step after another, past Matthew’s door and a creepy shadow figure in the corner by the desk that Ronan knew from memory was a baseball bat and Mattie’s glove hung atop it. He took a mouthful of whiskey for himself and sprinkled some on Matthew’s door. “Sorry.” It was all he could think of to say, as if he’d blasphemed against the one last bit of good in this house.

** **

His own room and his parents’ were last: each door facing the other, both of them locked up tight not against intruders but against what Ronan feared might emerge from them someday. Declan had nearly commanded he open them to prevent mold and dust and disuse, but Ronan’s refusal had been so vehement that even stolid Declan had given in and agreed that yes, they should remain locked.

** **

Ronan never stepped between those doors if he could help it. He knew the air between them was several degrees colder than where he stood now. And he knew that the air moved between them,, slipping steadily from his own room to his parents’ and back again. Sliding across the floorboards like breath against a pane of glass.

** **

“Fuck,” said Ronan, and finished the bottle.


End file.
